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Friday, August 26, 2016

Baba Yaga and the Wise Doll by Hiawyn Oram

Genre: Russia / Toys / Animals / Magic / Suspense / Folktale

Year Published: 1997

Year Read: 2016

Publisher: Dutton Children's Books

I have read many Russian folktales during my time,
but I rarely read Russian folktales that involved the legendary fictional
figure, Baba Yaga. So, when found a
children’s book that starred Baba Yaga called “Baba Yaga and the Wise Doll” by Hiawyn Oram along with illustrations by Ruth Brown, while I was impressed that the illustrations were well
done and the characters Baba Yaga and the wise doll were interesting, the story
kind of felt a bit flat for me.

The book starts off with Baba
Yaga looking into her many ways mirror to take a look at three girls who are
named Horrid, Very Horrid and Too Nice.
Horrid and Very Horrid always made fun of Too Nice and one day, they
would not let Too Nice play with them and threw her out of the house. The only
way that Too Nice can come back inside the house is if she goes to Baba Yaga’s
house and gets one of her toads that wear a jeweled jacket and a diamond
collar. Luckily, Too Nice has a wise doll that was a gift from her mother and
the wise doll would give Too Nice some good advice to survive in the world.
When Too Nice finally comes to Baba Yaga’s house, Baba Yaga makes Too Nice do
various tasks and if Too Nice passes her tasks, then Baba Yaga will give Too
Nice anything she wants. But if Too Nice fails the tasks, then Baba Yaga will
feed Too Nice to her toads and her black cauldron!

Can Too Nice pass Baba Yaga’s tests?

Read this book to find out!

Hiawyn Oram has done a good
job at portraying Baba Yaga as this frightening yet reasonable character who
does some horrifying stuff such as feeding people to her toads and black cauldron,
but is willing to give Too Nice a chance to obtain her toads as long as Too
Nice performs her tasks well. I also loved the way that Hiawyn Oram portrayed the wise doll as the wise doll was the most
interesting part of the story, next to Baba Yaga herself and I loved the way that
the wise doll helped Too Nice by making its shadow do most of the tasks set out
by Baba Yaga which gives the story a mysterious and creative edge.

Ruth Brown’s artwork is
truly gorgeous, especially of the images of Baba Yaga, her toads and her black
cauldron. I loved the way that Baba Yaga
was drawn as having greenish skin and wild black hair that makes her look so
frightening. I also loved the fact that
her toads were drawn with jeweled jackets and diamond necklaces as it makes
them look regal and yet since they belong to Baba Yaga, we know that they are
truly revolting.

The reason why I gave this book a
three and a half star rating was because even though the illustrations were
gorgeous, the story felt a bit flat because the characters were not develop
enough where I was interested in them and there were many plot holes in this
story that made me scratch my head a bit about how one situation transitioned
to another situation. For example, I was puzzled about why Baba Yaga wanted to
mess with Too Nice and her sisters rather than some other random person and why
the sisters wanted Too Nice to get a toad from Baba Yaga in the first place.

Overall, while “Baba Yaga and the Wise Doll” had
interesting characters in both Baba Yaga and the Wise Doll and the
illustrations were gorgeous to look at, the story felt a little flat due to the
lack of characterization of Too Nice and her sisters and the many plot holes in
the story. I would recommend this book
to children ages five and up since smaller children might be frightened of Baba
Yaga and her toads.

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Hello! I'm Ronyell and anyone who wants to be my friend is free to become friends with me! Also, I love followers on my blog, since I have so many great things to talk about the various books I read from time to time. I love to read, exercise, sleep and surf on the internet, with reading being my most favorite activity.
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